Bringing Commemoration Lists to Church
Bringing commemoration lists to the Church: a "good old" habit or path to eternal life?
Anyone that has ever visited a monastery in one of the Orthodox cradle countries has probably seen monks reading endlessly long lists with names, brought in by the faithful to be commemorated at the sacred services. Also during the intercession prayers we perform in the Church, like the Paraklesis to the Most Holy Theotokos, we read again long lists with names. Is this something that is indeed good for our souls or it is an archaic reminiscence of a long gone past? Why we have to commemorate everyone by name and not just use an encompassing term like "my family" or "the whole world"?
In order to answer these questions we have to review a couple of important concepts. First of all we need to remember that the purpose of the Christian life is achieving the mystical union with God. This union doesn't have to be understood as a pantheist union, a dissolution of our selves in an undefined "oneness" of all being, in which we lose our individuality. This is what some of the Far Eastern religions believe.
We, as Christians, believe that the world has being created out of nothing and that there is an insuperable barrier between God's essence and ours. The union with God, or theosis, as it is called in the Orthodox Church, is a union without loosing one's uniqueness. A unity in which Man does not melt into God's Being, but it is accomplished as a true person, a person distinct from God and from all the other persons that share the same union with Him.
God Himself is three Persons, but yet one God. All tree Persons share the same Godly Essence and posses it fully, but without confusion. In the same mystical way we can all be united with God, but in the same time keeping our individuality as unique human beings, distinct from all the others, yet united with them in Christ.
The commemoration of the faithful by name is stating this truth exactly: we are all in the communion of the Church and together we are united with God, but yet we are also individualities, we are diverse human beings that seek a personal union with God. Salvation is in the same time universal, but yet personal.
The second concept we need to refer to is the service of Prothesis performed by the priest at the beginning of the Liturgy. This service is performed in the Altar, without the faithful seeing it. It is the moment in which the offerings of bread and wine are prepared for the Eucharistical Liturgy.
During this service the priest prepares on the diskos the bread, prosphora, which is cut into several pieces. The central piece, called the Lamb represents Christ; at his right we put another piece that represents the mother of God. On the left we arrange nine triangular pieces representing the Holy Angels and the different groups of Saints. Finally under these we prepare two smaller groups of bread pieces representing the living and the departed. These two groups are formed of small pieces of bread taken out from the prosphora by the priest, while commemorating the names handed to him before the service. For each name he takes out a small particle.
This special setting of the offerings and the commemoration of names represent the gathering of the entire world around Christ. This is the image of the new order established by God in the world; a world centered upon the Sacrifice of Christ, in which we mystically partake by being commemorated here. The piece of bread taken out for every commemorated name distinguishes that person from all others, yet entering in union with all, through Christ.
We can understand now why, by commemorating its members during the sacred services, the Church brings all her members together again, the Militant Church, (the living), and the Triumphant Church, (the departed), into One Church again, the Church of the Son of God, who came down from heavens to save us all, ONE BY ONE.